


burn the pages (oh the years)

by wearethewitches



Series: author's favourites [9]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Abduction, Abusive Dursley Family, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Dreams vs. Reality, Dubious Ethics, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Gender Issues, Gender Roles, Harry Potter Changes His Name, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Libraries, Magic, Music, Period Typical Attitudes, Queen Sarah (Labyrinth), Time Travel, Trans Character, toby williams is a wizard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-02-08 07:32:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12859794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethewitches/pseuds/wearethewitches
Summary: Sarah Williams, Queen of the Labyrinth; Jareth the Goblin King-and so, Juniper Charles Potter wishes herself away.





	1. 17

Seventeen.

 _I am seventeen_ , Sarah thinks as her father sternly reprimands her for even bringing up the concept of _them looking after their own child and not use her as a babysitter._

Seventeen years of age – she can’t even drink, yet she’s expected to look after a baby, barely eighteen months old? Sarah protested before… _before_ wishing her brother away, four months ago when she was still only sixteen and not seventeen. Sarah still protests now, but Sarah knows she’s doing it differently, differently enough that her parents – that her father and step-mother – both take notice.

“Are you even listening to anything your father is saying?” her step-mother cuts into her thoughts. “You need to get your head out of the clouds, Sarah. This is life. We don’t have time to look after Toby-”

“Lie,” Sarah says, without thinking, recognising her words for what they are. “That’s a lie,” she says, staying sat in her chair at the dining table as her father leans over his plate at the end.

Her father glares. “Don’t speak to Karen like that. Apologise, Sarah.”

“No,” Sarah refuses. “You do have time to look after Toby, you just spend it doing something else. You go to parties and dinners. You aren’t even _paying_ me.”

“Why would we pay you?” Karen laughs, shaking her head. “Toby’s your brother, you don’t _need_ to be paid.”

“If you leave him with me again, I’m phoning the police,” Sarah delivers her ultimatum. There’s a moments silence, before her father slams down his dinner-fork, the glasses and plates clattering and vibrating.

“Go to your room, right now. You’re grounded for a week.”

“Fine,” Sarah says, standing and leaving. Why does righteousness feel so bitter on her tongue? _Toby_. Toby is an innocent soul in all of this. Toby shouldn’t have to bear the brunt of Sarah’s dive for independence, recognition that she is a _person._

Sarah goes to her room. She locks the door and leans against it, looking into her cluttered space and seeing relics of her childhood – toys, doll houses and costumes.

 _Well,_ she thinks again as she looks at the wardrobe of period dresses and small trunk of shoes, _they aren’t so childish, not really._ Drama, theatre and performance are obsessions of hers. _I could get rid of my toys though, from when I was younger. Give them to Toby or put them in the attack._

The rest of the week passes by and she boxes what seems like half her room up, giving her stuffed fox to Toby and using gloves to pick up some nails that have fallen from somewhere and give her a bad feeling like she’ll be hurt, that her hands will _burn_.

Of course, Sarah’s so-called grounding just gives her parents another reason to leave her alone with Toby; but she swore she would phone the police if they did and Sarah will _keep her word._

“And you gave them fair warning?” the officer questions, more serious than Sarah expected them to be when they arrive and she explains the situation.

“I told them no, many times. I refused to be _used_.” It doesn’t sit right in her. It never did, but now more than ever, Sarah can’t stomach the thought, let alone the reality that someone has _power_ over her.

 _Maybe it was a dream._ Sarah thinks of the Labyrinth, closes her eyes and sees the sandy walls and stones, the talking doors and the Fireys dancing and singing around their campfire.

Her friends – who visited her through her mirror, who never came back through again or who maybe weren’t ever there at all – plot their usual course; Hoggle to his gardening, Sir Didymus to his patrols and Ludo to his gentle life, occasionally batting unruly goblin interlopers.

The Goblin King sits forlorn in a tower window, overlooking the impossible maze, but his gaze shifts, meeting hers, still so intoxicating even in her head.

 _You have no power over me,_ she thinks at the spectre and he shuts his eyes as if in pain.

“…if the Goblin King cannot use me, no-one can,” Sarah later murmurs in her bed after her parents have been ordered home by the authorities and lectured on employing Sarah as an unpaid child minder.

She wonders if she could have gone a different route – if she could have resolved their stagnant conflict with _compromise_ or by faking some form of mental breakdown from the stress. Is this way better or worse?

“You’re just like your mother,” her father proclaimed bitterly, after the officer left. “All the attention and the drama-”

 _The only way my mother and I are the same is how neither of us say what we don’t mean._ Sarah silently replies to his accusation in her head, after hours of replaying the conversation in her head, finally coming up with her perfect counter.

Sarah rearranges her room. Her bed goes in the corner and her other pieces of furniture are either rearranged along the walls or put to the attic, unneeded now she has less material possessions. She’s left with a space in the middle of her room, full of carpet and softness, perfect for lying down on and thinking.

Sometimes, Sarah stares at her cracked ceiling for hours, tracing lines and seeing double, the Labyrinth a beautiful, volatile picture in her mind. It’s like the Labyrinth is right in front of her and sometimes, she feels as though she’s able to touch it, should she just reach out her hand, stretch…

When she was younger, she asked her father for a guitar. She learnt to play it as well as she could at twelve, before finding love in novels and plays. Charity shops, yard sales and car-boot markets were her friends. The obscure always caught her eye – but she was like those goblins who hoarded junk and her things filled the space around her until she was blinded.

The guitar lies up against the wall, now and she can see clearly.

Picking it up again is strange. Sarah plucks a string and nearly shivers in fright at how out of tune the guitar is. The Labyrinth always in her sight, she seeks out the Goblin King who would know and whispers to him, questioning.

_Would you sing for me, please? Help me tune my guitar._

Jareth looks so startled at her voice, so oddly surprised – but an exuberant smile soon lights up his face and he laughs, before singing a simple ditty. Sarah doesn’t take long to tune her guitar with it and her fingers remember most of the notes she knew as a child, so when he becomes less rigid, stringing together a more complex song of sound – with no words, for Sarah does not think she could replicate that beautiful sound – Sarah plays along.

Her guitar sees more use than it had when she was twelve after that. Sarah is alone, yet never alone whenever she picks it up after school, playing along silently to Jareth’s voice. He usually sings happy songs, but every once in a while, a sad epic will lay waste to her and she abandons her guitar to lie back down on her round carpet to listen.

“You’ve changed a lot,” someone at school says. _Samantha,_ Sarah recalls her name with clarity, the name tied to her friend like caramel taffee but shining grey.

“People change,” Sarah replies, not thinking much of it – but it makes her notice the true changes that suddenly stick out like fire in the dark.

Her close friends in the drama club at school have drawn away from her, half the time seeming to forget she exists _._ Samantha had said she’d changed with a startled tone to her voice, like she’d just realised Sarah was there – and more often than not, teachers do roll-call and drift over her name like it isn’t even there.

In truth, Sarah hadn’t even noticed. She hasn’t cared enough to notice. Solitude is a boon, her fantasy of Jareth and the Labyrinth a constant, warm companion in her head. They’re both all there – Jareth, always wandering and the Labyrinth, full of twists, turns and tumbles, ups and downs, flats and walls, spiral through her head – and only Toby, young, baby Toby, provides her true, human connection.

But still.

 _Why are people leaving me?_ Sarah asks Jareth on a slow day for song, nearly a year from the day she wished Toby away. He frowns in the middle of his delicate dance across the room, glancing at where she sees him from on his throne.

“I think you already know, my Queen.”

His reply sends her shooting straight into the real world and she gasps, jolting into the physical world. For once, he disappears from her head and the Labyrinth dulls to a tiny, miniscule brightness in the back of her mind.

“Queen,” Sarah whispers in fear, clutching the neck of her guitar and practically flinging it away when the strings all snap under her fingers, startled and surprised. The guitar makes all sorts of wrong noises, the strings curling up at either end as the guitar settles on the ground, last echoes ringing through it from a bump against her bookcase.

_I am Jareth’s Queen._

“No,” she whispers as, all at once, she realises her mistake. “No, no, no…”

_My will is as strong as yours and my kingdom as great_

“No, no, no, no, no-”

_You have no power over me!_

Sarah clutches at her head, eyes wide and chest pounding.

“What have I done? Words have _power_ and I- and I said- oh _no!_ ”

_My will is as strong as yours and my kingdom as great. You have no power over me!_

“What kingdom did I have?” Sarah buries her face in her hands, leaning down into her crossed legs. “I had _none_ , yet I said _my kingdom as great!_ He must not have had a queen! I took the _empty space_ and made his kingdom _mine_.”

Sarah doesn’t know what to do. _I am a Queen. I am Jareth’s Queen. He is my King and the Labyrinth…the Labyrinth is **ours**._ But oh, doesn’t the thought of sharing the Labyrinth send a thrill through her chest? Adrenaline pumping through her veins, her heart beating in her chest. The drop of warmth in her mind pulses that strange, unique, familiar song of the Underground and Sarah reaches for it.

Once more, the Labyrinth overlays her mind. Without meaning to, Sarah automatically seeks out Jareth, but this time instead of murmuring to him, she imagines herself there, in front of him.

The Goblin King watches her with unblinking eyes, but he offers his hand and Sarah takes it after only a moment’s pause. It’s cold in her grip but undeniably _solid._

“Jareth,” she breathes his name and he shivers before Sarah hears a knock on her bedroom door, like she’s still there, in the Above.

“ _Sarah, is it okay to leave Toby with you tonight if I give you some pocket-money? Santina is at her nephews birthday party in Oklahoma._ ”

Sarah tries to keep the connection on both sides running, but as she focuses on the Above, her hand in Jareth’s in the Underground dematerialises.

“Sarah? Are you in there?” her dad questions, sounding wary.

“…yeah, I’m in here,” Sarah says, voice delayed as she tries to orientate herself. “Will it be overnight?”

“I _will_ call if it turns into that, but no, I shouldn’t think so,” her dad replies and Sarah, for once, feels safe in trusting him on this. She shuts her eyes, nodding, giving him a verbal affirmative before listening to his footsteps as they fade out.

Then, Sarah goes over to her guitar, inspecting it and gently ignoring Jareth’s whisper of her name, over and over. _Sarah, Sarah, come back, Sarah. Nearest to my heart, my Sarah, my Queen, **Sarah**._ Sarah remembers something he said to her when she ran the Labyrinth.

_Your eyes can be so cruel, just as I can be so cruel._

“Cruelty,” Sarah murmurs, standing with her guitar and going to a drawer where she keeps spare strings. “Eyes cannot be cruel. I am cruel, just as he is. For our wills are equal, just as our kingdom is great…”

Sarah restrings her guitar. The afternoon passes and then the evening. When her parents come home, relieving Sarah from duty, she kisses Toby goodnight again as she goes past her parents’ room before returning to the sanctuary of her own.

Then, Sarah shuts her eyes and dreams of the Goblin King.


	2. Chapter 2

Five.

 _I’m five,_ Harry thinks, biting his lip as he tries to memorise the date. _Thirty-first of July, nineteen eighty. Thirty-first of July, nineteen eighty._

Around him, his classmates scramble to find out their birthdays from the teacher or shout when they’re born, sharing with everyone. Harry’s attention gets briefly caught when Annie and Georgia realise they share the same birthday, jumping up and down, squealing.

Hands fisting in his too-big-school-shirt from Dudley, Harry looks over at his cousin, who pushes pens off the teacher’s desk when she tells him to wait his turn for his name to be read out. Later, in the playground, it’s Harry that gets pushed over, blood running from his elbows and knees, staining his clothes.

“Filthy boy!” Aunt Petunia hisses, inspecting his clothes roughly as she kneels in front of him after school. “At least your jumper is red,” she says, muttering about how hard blood is to get out of clothes.

Aunt Petunia takes them to the park afterwards. Harry gathers the courage to ask her to swing him like Mrs Polkiss is doing with Piers’ baby sister and though she purses her lips, Aunt Petunia nods, directing him to the black rubber seat.

It’s a strange experience, being pushed, but it makes Harry feel giddy. He laughs, grinning, but his hands slip from around the chains and then Harry is shooting through the air, falling. He screams, arms rising as he flails, landing on his feet and falling forwards, bashing his head on the ground.

Aunt Petunia takes him home because he won’t stop crying. When they get in the door, Dudley has already kicked him half a dozen times for ruining his day and – still crying – Aunt Petunia doesn’t hesitate to lock him in his cupboard.

“Little boys don’t cry!” she snaps, holding Dudley back as Harry curls up on his small mattress.

“Yeah!” Dudley agrees, before his voice becomes muffled. “Only girls cry!”

In the quiet, in the dark, Harry calms down. He wipes his cheeks and feels his heart stutter in his chest as he grips his blanket tightly. Harry thinks he’s a boy, but if girls cry, then- then does that make him a girl?

 _Dudley cries a lot, or…or at least he pretends._ Harry tries to figure out his cousin, thinking about tears and sadness. _Maybe because he pretends, that doesn’t make him a girl. Dudley’s never **really** sad, he’s just being greedy._ Harry thinks back to only that morning, when Dudley made a mess just because he wanted to know his own birthday first, before anyone else-

**_BANG!_ **

“Boy! Get your lazy arse out of your cupboard and help your aunt with dinner!” Uncle Vernon roars and Harry snaps to attention, horrified he’d missed the tell-tale _thump, thump, thump_ of his uncle walking down the corridor.

He scrambles to attention, practically falling out of the cupboard as Uncle Vernon swings it open.

The next day, instead of going to the park, Aunt Petunia drops him off at the library. Dudley grins nastily through the window as she leads him strictly through the double-doors, her fingers in a vice-grip around his wrist.

“Now, you will stay here until Vernon comes to pick you up at closing time. You will not leave this room,” Aunt Petunia instructs in a whisper, meeting eyes with him. Harry nods and her fingers tighten. “Do you understand me, you little freak? _Speak._ ”

“I understand, Aunt Petunia,” Harry tries to pull out of her grip and thankfully, she lets go, leaving him in the children’s section of the library. He watches her disappear and then just stands there, not sure what to do. Eventually, the colourful bookshelves catch his attention and Harry goes over to them, pulling one out.

Finding a seat on a low, blanket-covered sofa, Harry reads the book, struggling over the words and sometimes relying on the pictures to help him – but he reads. He finishes the book and he feels very proud of himself.

“Would you like me to read you a story, little one?” the librarian asks, adjusting his glasses. Harry blinks up at him, taking in the wispy white hair and greenish cardigan. “What’s your name, chum?”

“Harry,” Harry answers.

“Well, Harry,” the librarian goes over to the bookshelf, looking along it before pulling out a small paperback with a picture of a lion on the front. “My name is Mr Ben and I think you would like this book. It’s called _The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe_ , by CS Lewis. It’s part of the Chronicles of Narnia.”

Mr Ben comes to sit on the sofa and over the next few afternoons of Aunt Petunia bringing Harry to the library, they read chapters of _The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe_ on the sofa. On the Friday, Mr Ben even gives Harry a paper bag of liquorice to chew on while they read.

The weekend feels so long to Harry, without his trips to the library. He misses Mr Ben, who is so much nicer than Uncle Vernon, he wants to know the end of the story – and most importantly of all, he wants to get away from Dudley, who pulls his hair, pushes him down the stairs and turns off the vacuum at the plug when he’s supposed to be hoovering.

“Stop it!” Harry stamps his foot as Dudley turns it off for the third time in a row. He goes over to the power-socket as his cousin runs across the room, only for Aunt Petunia to comes surging around the corner, thwacking him with the feather duster.

“If you turn that off again, you will not get dinner tonight!”

“It’s not me! Dudley-” Harry tries to tell her what happened, but she hits him with the feather-duster again.

“Don’t try to put your bad behaviour on my precious angel, Diddikins, you little mongrel! No dinner!”

“But it wasn’t me!” Harry starts crying, stomping his foot. “It wasn’t me!”

“Like I’d believe you,” Aunt Petunia sneers. “Stop whining and finish hoovering.”

“Crying’s for girls!” Dudley shouts from across the room, before knocking over a picture frame as he moves. The _smash_ is audible, but Harry only cries more at how Aunt Petunia reacts – insisting that _it’s an accident, Diddikins, don’t step on the glass! You’ll hurt your feet!_

It isn’t fair how she treats him compared to Harry – and even at five, Harry can see that, his basis for comparison at the other end of the spectrum of caring. He blubbers and cries at the _unfairness_ of it all, backing away from them both.

“Oh, won’t you shut up?” Aunt Petunia scowls at him, delicately leading Dudley around the shattered photo frame. “Get rid of this mess – and _stop crying._ ”

“I-I-I-I-I _can’t!_ ” Harry stutters, hiccoughing and losing his breath in the same moment. Getting Dudley out the living room into the hall, Aunt Petunia returns to Harry, grabbing his shoulder and pulling him the other way into the dining room.

“Stop crying, little boys don’t cry!”

“I-I-I _can’t stop!_ ”

“You _will_ stop,” Aunt Petunia replies, before slapping him. The action knocks Harry out of his jag and for a few moments, he can’t breathe or move, the pain rushing to his cheek. “If you start crying, you’ll be having no breakfast tomorrow, either.”

Harry can feel himself about to cry, but _food!_ He’s already going to be missing dinner, he can’t miss breakfast too. So, Harry bites on his tongue, squeezing his eyes shut tight even as they sting and water. He covers them, rubbing hard enough his eyes feel like they’re going to pop.

“Good. You can have breakfast tomorrow, if you clean up the broken picture and finish your chores,” Aunt Petunia says. The words are like a blow to the heart. Harry whimpers. “None of that! You’ll be fine. Little boys don’t cry.”

 _Little boys don’t cry. Little boys don’t cry._ The words echo in his head for hours and hours and eventually, Harry decides he wants to cry – he _wants_ to scream at the unfairness. Why should Dudley get everything he wants in life while Harry doesn’t even get to _cry?_

“I’m a girl!” Harry snaps at Uncle Vernon when he says, _boy, get in your cupboard_ after he has to sit at the table, watching Dudley eat roast dinner. “I’m a girl!”

“No, you’re not,” Dudley immediately says, face screwing up so he looks more like a pig than usual. “You’re a boy – right, Mummy?”

“Right,” Aunt Petunia says hesitantly. Harry is frozen, sitting there without knowing how to process. _But, I’m…I want to cry, that makes me a girl._ “You’re a boy…Harry.”

“I’m a girl,” Harry says softly, before tears well up. Harry scrubs at them, but they keep coming and then- and _then_ , shoulders shaking, back curling, a meaty hand clamps down on his shoulder. Uncle Vernon leans close, beady eyes frowning.

“A girl? Have you been listening to my conversations with your aunt?”

Harry, still crying, shakes his head. “N-n-n-n-no, Un-Uncle Vernon.”

Uncle Vernon grunts and there’s a moment of silence, before he mutters, “Just like Marge.” He leans back, hand leaving Harry’s shoulder. “If you’re a girl, you get a new name.”

“Vernon?” Aunt Petunia blinks, baffled, “What-”

“If the boy- if the _girl_ says she’s a girl,” Vernon stabs a piece of broccoli with his chicken, “then, she’s a girl and that’s the end of it. She’s her own person and she knows who she is. I’ll have no arguments.” He eats his forkful, words sounding rehearsed, but confident.

Harry will find out later that Dudley’s Aunt Marge used to be called Edmund.

“Have you _always_ been a girl?” Dudley questions Harry, dumbfounded. Harry, still so upset and so very confused, shrugs helplessly. “Dad, am I a girl?”

“No,” Vernon says, face twisting strangely. “If you’re a girl, you’ll know.”

“…I’m a boy,” Dudley then says, before getting right back to his dinner.

 _I’m a girl,_ Harry thinks, sniffling and wiping at wet eyelids. _I get to have a new name._

“Uncle- Uncle Vernon,” Harry starts, voice clogged and nasally, “I don’t know what name to have.”

Uncle Vernon coughs, before clearing his throat. “You- you can be called…Rose.”

“No,” Aunt Petunia immediately says. “I knew a Rose. She was horrible.”

“Your family is the one with flower names,” Uncle Vernon argues. “You come up with a better one!”

“I will, then,” Aunt Petunia says, voice shrill as she glares at Harry. Silent, Harry swallows, stomach rumbling loudly. Uncle Vernon, obviously hating the sound, reaches for the bowl of potatoes, fishing out two and placing them on a napkin, sliding them over to her.

“Eat, girl,” he orders starkly, “I make too much money to hear _that_ sound.”

“Thank-you,” Harry whispers, awing over being called _girl,_ even as she takes her potatoes, nibbling on them.

“June,” Aunt Petunia eventually says, the word loud and strange against the silent backdrop of Sunday dinner. “Juniper – it’s a plant.”

“Marge is called Margery Robert, after our grandfather,” Uncle Vernon chuffs through some chicken. “What’s his- what were Potter’s parents called?”

“I…I don’t know,” Aunt Petunia admits, frowning. “Though, I remember the names on Lily’s wedding certificate. James….Charles? Charlus?”

“Charles,” Uncle Vernon says, before pointing his fork at Harry. “Your new name is Juniper Charles Potter. June for short. How about that, girl?”

And Harry-

_No._

_My name is Juniper._

Juniper finishes the potatoes she had been given so very graciously by her uncle, thanking him with a leaping hug. He tolerates it for exactly two seconds before shaking her off, ordering her to bed, calling her day _traumatic_.

“We should have Marge over,” Uncle Vernon says as she leaves the kitchen, voice fading as Juniper opens her cupboard and gets inside. “She can tell the girl how to deal with all the bad press from her peers, though you’ll help with that, won’t you, Dudders? My strong son, protecting his cousin…”


	3. Chapter 3

Gold. Golden stone, shining in the sunlight.

“You should spend more time here,” Jareth says. They’re sitting cross-legged on a grassy knoll, looking down over the towering walls of the Labyrinth. Sarah idly plays along with the cats cradle he’s making, the string moving and then twisting out again.

 _I’m in the Above, too,_ she replies. _I might be here, but I’m there as well. Two lives, no matter how unbalanced they are._

“You are a queen, my queen – you should not bother yourself with human pursuits,” Jareth purrs, using the string to entrap her wrists, curling his body over hers. Sarah drops back onto the grass, legs pleasantly burning, still crossed beneath him. “Join me permanently, my love.”

 _We’ve not even kissed past lips._ Sarah smiles, however, because Jareth is quick to rectify her comment and it’s nothing. Sarah has never been interested in the physical aspects of romance, after all. The acting of it, yes – for Jareth, she’ll allow her lips to be plundered, tongues slipping over the others – but the truth is, nothing will satisfy her other than conversation and her beloved Labyrinth. _It’s taken my heart so quickly._

“The Labyrinth entraps her keepers,” Jareth says, “ _enthrals_ them.”

_Like it enthralled you?_

“Yes.”

Sarah imagines a younger Jareth seeing the Labyrinth for the first time, curious and then trapped by it’s complexities. Goodness knows Sarah was quite distracted at the time, Toby at the forefront of her mind, but she can’t remember a time after arriving where she truly, _truly_ wanted to leave. Save Toby, get _Toby_ home – but Sarah knows the myth of Hades and Persephone.

She supposes that perhaps, Persephone made the choice to eat her pomegranate seeds, just as Sarah did her peach.

 _If I ate the food of the Below, would I fade from the Above?_ Sarah asks.

“Yes,” Jareth says, “But do not. No matter my wants, your happiness is my true goal. Your dear brother would be left so very, very alone, my Queen and neither of us wants that.”

 _No,_ Sarah says, before the Above calls her in the form of said brother toddling into her room. She sits up from her bed, grinning as he makes his way over to her, drooling and smiling.

“Sarah, come play!” he asks – no, _orders_. Goblins giggle and sneak from shadow to shadow behind him, so Sarah knows he does not lack for playmates. “Sarah!” he grapples at her blankets, trying to pull himself up and failing.

“You can do it,” Sarah encourages, the fluffy carpet at his feet soft enough to break his fall if he does drop – though she watches his trajectory as he huffs and puffs, making sure he won’t accidentally fall and bang his head on her bedside table.

Toby gets impatient, however. In that moment, Sarah can only watch with some kind of- some kind of _knowing_ as he lifts off the floor and plops gently onto her bed, instantly latching onto her after his impromptu levitation. Sarah draws him into a hug, even as her senses scream at her.

_Magic! Magic, magic, magic!_

“Toby, what was that?” she asks, not even thinking before going to the Labyrinth – not even realising she’s brought Toby with her until Jareth is blinking in surprise, staring at the wriggling toddler in her lap.

“Sarah?” he questions, “I think your parents might protest at the abduction of their son, no matter how much you wish to stay here.”

“I’ve not abducted him,” Sarah argues, only to realise something very, very important. Before, even with the Labyrinth being real around her – for at least a fifth, no, a _quarter_ of her being is trapped here by the bite of peach – she could feel the Above like an anchor or a heavy weight, as if she were Atlas and the Above was the Sky. But now, though, now her world revolves around the toddler who is currently moving out of her arms to inspect Jareth, crawling onto the grass and sitting up on his haunches, peering at the Goblin King.

“Kingy?” Toby addresses, adorably confused. “Kingy…”

“…yes, Kingy,” Sarah says, hand rising to brush against the golden fluff on top of his head. “Brother-Kingy.”

“Brother?” Jareth questions her, eyebrow rising. “I am far from a brother to young Toby.”

“He’s my brother and therefore your brother-in-law, if I am your Queen,” Sarah proclaims and there’s that familiar _power_ to her statement. Jareth’s eyes flash and then he is scooping Toby up into his arms, ignoring her entirely as he amuses Toby.

“Brother-mine,” he drawls, before faux-tiredly singing a song, throwing Toby high up into the air with a faked detachment. Sarah’s brother squeals and laughs, shouting _Kingy!_ Jareth doesn’t smile at him, not like he smiles at Sarah – but his lips do curl at the sides and then, when Toby is twirling in the air above their heads, Sarah feels the Labyrinth reaching out, claiming and imprinting upon the new Duke of Dream Grove.

“I’m still out there,” Sarah says later, confused, when Toby is asleep in a crib inside Jareth’s castle. “Aren’t I?”

Jareth takes her hand, drawing her away, over to the balcony, leading her up an outer staircase to their chambers.

“Sometimes,” he says, “you’re tied to your homeland, my Queen, despite how your anchor now resides with us. He will not be able to live in the Labyrinth forever. If he does, he will be forever changed. It is in the nature of humans to need their own company and as a mage, he has powers I nor you can help him control.”

“A mage – he floated, earlier,” Sarah says.

“He will need a helping hand,” the Goblin King gently explains, “and you in turn will go with him. Existing in the Labyrinth now, with your anchor, will draw you into one form. Where he goes, so shall you and no longer shall you live both here and there.”

“So, if I wanted to…” Sarah trails off and she’s there, both with Jareth and downstairs, with Toby. “Oh.” As she draws her hand across Toby’s warm cheek, she simultaneously grips Jareth’s gloved hands. “And this will stop, eventually?”

“I don’t pretend to know everything, my love,” Jareth says, before twirling her under his arm. She draws away from Toby, second form fading away as she dances with her king. Sarah hums and Jareth sings and they are in sync, two halves of a whole.

Later still, they curl together in bed and Jareth brings Sarah to a peak she’s never found on her own. It’s a new experience, but not one she particularly wants to repeat, no matter the thrill it brought her to feel that waterfall – that _rush_ of pleasure – or the improperness of having Jareth between her legs.

“You are like my cousin’s sister,” Jareth says. “My brother calls her strange, but I think she is like you.”

“Will I ever meet these illustrious and _absent_ family members of yours?” Sarah questions, having heard mention of them many times.

Jareth smiles. “Not yet, my most precious of all treasures. In fifty years, ask me once more and then, I might not say _nay._ I do not wish to share you, my most beautiful and curious of brides.”

“Are we married, now?” Sarah jokes, even as it rings true. _My words to Jareth – he’s my brother and therefore your brother-in-law, if I am your Queen._ She meant it in the way of marriage and in-laws, for all her knowledge of kings and queens say they’re couples. Her words were said and her words made it so. Jareth presses his head to her own, eyes luminescent in the darkness – he can see in the dark, of course.

“ _Wife,_ ” he whispers. “ _Queen of the Labyrinth._ ”

Sarah shivers, not from the reverence or the acceptance she feels – but from her own preconceived notions. She needs to learn how these things work faster, before she does something she’ll regret. Sarah wouldn’t be able to recover if something happened to Jareth because of her foolishness or worse, _Toby._

“Tell me,” she mumbles, afraid, “tell me when I do something I shouldn’t. I don’t know what’s right or wrong, here. The Underground…Jareth, it’s terrifying. Please help me.” Sarah cries tears of sorrow and Jareth holds her in his arms, crooning a soft, mournful ditty. Only when she’s on the cusp of sleep does she finally hear him promise her.

“I swear, I shall be your support, your advisor as you are mine, my Queen, my wife. Forever,” he whispers, “I am your _slave._ ”


End file.
